Is EFL Cup a distraction from Charlton’s attempts to win promotion out of League One – Ben Garner has his say

Ben Garner has admitted that tonight’s EFL Cup tie at Walsall has only added to a crammed fixture schedule for his Charlton Athletic side.

The South Londoners will bid to book their place in the third round of the competition after knocking out Championship outfit QPR on penalties earlier this month.

Addicks boss Garner has described his squad as “stretched” with injuries set to rule out Mandela Egbo, Conor McGrandles, Corey Blackett-Taylor and Chuks Aneke.

“It’s the overall picture of this month – there are eight games in August and if you include the Accrington game, right at the end of July, it is nine in 30 days,” Garner told the South London Press, when asked if the EFL Cup is a distraction from the priority of mounting a promotion challenge in League One . “That is a lot. You’re averaging a game every three days.

“In isolation it [the EFL Cup game] is not a distraction but in the bigger picture it is a lot of games in a short space of time. It has stretched our squad and it will have stretched a lot of squads, I’m aware of injuries at other clubs. None of us want that – we want our players available and on the pitch in good health.

“It’s something to look at moving forward. Historically the start of the season is not quite as busy as this but with the amount of games we’ve had – we went through in the cup, which is great, but that gives us an extra fixture. But you want to win. You’re not going into the QPR game thinking ‘do you know what? We could do with losing so we don’t have a game in two weeks time’. We want to win and tbe byproduct of that is that you have more games.

“Hopefully we can win on Tuesday night, then we’ll have another game in November and get a good draw in the next round.”

PICTURE: KYLE ANDREWS